Such a luggage generally comprises a container which forms the useful part of the luggage, a sleeve fixed to the container, as well as a tube generally provided with a projecting hand grip mounted in a sliding fashion in the sleeve between a retracted position in which the tube is received in the sleeve for carrying the luggage or for storage, and a deployed position in which the tube extends beyond the sleeve in order to facilitate pulling the luggage along.
Pull-along luggage provided with telescopic tubes have been known for a long time. Whilst the telescopic tube improves the ergonomics of the luggage, it still poses some practical problems.
Firstly, such a tube proves to be relatively bulky. It has been proposed to make it disappear into the container (see for example US Patent Application 2002/0096410), but it then cuts down the useful volume of the luggage.
Secondly, repeated use leads to the appearance of clearance in the mechanism of the tube which has a tendency, when handled roughly (for example in an airport environment), to come out of the sleeve at the wrong moment, which can lead to it breaking in the case of impact.
It has therefore been proposed to make the tube so that it can be locked in the retracted position and integrated, as well as its hand grip, in the volume of the container: the tube is provided with a lock with two positions, namely a locking position in which the lock blocks the tube in the retracted position, and an unlocking position in which it releases it. A spring catch, which can be actuated manually, causes the lock to be positioned in its unlocked position, thus releasing the tube which can be deployed in order to allow the luggage to be pulled along. A release device connected to springs optionally makes it possible to make the tube spring out of its housing in order to make it easy to grasp for pulling along. By way of illustration of these aims, reference can be made to the U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,702, U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,319, U.S. Pat. No. 5,692,266 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,803,214.
These mechanisms appear, at first sight, to mark progress in terms of the ability of the luggage to resist impacts. In practice, it has been noted that certain tubes have a tendency to split, or even break, under certain impacts resulting in particular from the luggage being dropped vertically. It even happens, as a consequence, that the container itself is damaged by the movement of the tube. In fact, the tube and its hand grip remain exposed to certain impacts, in particular those transmitted from the hand grip to the tube, even in the retracted position.
This is even more applicable when the luggage is semi-rigid or flexible, as the container is deformed to a greater or lesser extent under the action of mechanical stresses which expose the tube and particularly its hand grip even more, in the event of impacts.
Thus, the tube and its hand grip remain exposed to certain impacts, which are all the more likely to lead to malfunctioning of the tube or in the worst case, irreparably damage the luggage.